ITWeb is conducting a survey on ransomware in partnership with KnowBe4 to examine the impact of ransomware on the South African economy.
The ransomware survey is anonymous − you are only asked to leave your details if you choose to enter the lucky draw, and you can rest assured that your identity will never be linked back to the anonymous section.
Once completed, repondents can opt to enter a lucky draw to win a Takealot voucher to the value of R3 000, safe in the knowledge that answers to questions will not be linked to their contact details.
Anna Collard, SVP of content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa, says there are many different types of ransomware and significant, evolutionary changes are continuing to happen.
"The early days of ransomware just encrypting the data are long gone," she says. "Today, the ransomware adversaries do their research to cause their victims significant damage and operational risk. And they are getting pretty good at it.”
Ransomware has evolved to double or triple extortion schemes, including exfiltrating sensitive information and posting it publicly, extorting employees or customers, DDoS attacks against services, or publicly embarrassing their victims, notes Collard.
And things are moving very fast in the ransomware world, making it tricky to get up-to-date figures and statistics.
“With US president Biden declaring ransomware a national threat, it puts emerging economies such as South Africa on the map for cyber criminals. We have an advanced economy that in certain sectors is highly cyber dependent and willing to pay up. We also do not have the same national defense nor cyber security power found in developed countries and lack in resources, skills and response capabilities. More alignment and public-private partnerships are needed to solve this challenge.”
We hope you’ll be able set aside a few minutes of your time to participate in the survey, and stand a chance to win a lucky draw prize, a Takealot voucher to the value of R3 000.
The detailed results of the survey, and the prize winner, will be published on ITWeb.
To play your role in compiling this ransomware readiness trends report, click on this link.
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